FIFA President Gianni Infantino chose to start his week in the Middle East joining U.S President Donald Trump's state visits with their close ally the Saudi Arabian crown prince, then the Emir of Qatar.
The knock-on effect was felt Thursday when Infantino's late arrival on private jet flights from Qatar forced FIFA's annual meeting in Paraguay to start more than three hours late.
It led to a mid-meeting walkout in protest by senior officials from European soccer body UEFA at the “deeply regrettable” delay.
UEFA said in a statement "what appears to be simply to accommodate private political interests, does the game no service and appears to put its interests second.”
Infantino had picked real-world politics with past and future World Cup host nations over being on the other side of the globe with his 211 national federation members and voters. They had started arriving in Paraguay three days earlier.
The Qatar state-provided jet flying the FIFA boss from Doha, via Nigeria, meant he was still at high altitude over the Atlantic Ocean when his meeting had been due to start.
It also pushed some senior European officials on FIFA's ruling council, including UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin, to leave their main stage seats early.
“We are uniting the world today in Asunción,” Infantino said in closing remarks on the stage where about one-quarter of the seats had been empty for the previous 90 minutes.
For the second straight year, there was no post-Congress news conference to question Infantino.
Infantino had apologized to his audience several times when the meeting finally opened close to 1 p.m. local time (1600 GMT) instead of the originally scheduled 9:30 a.m.
He cited issues with his flight and insisted it was important he had been in the Middle East at “important discussions ... with some world leaders in politics and economy.”
“I felt like I had to be there to represent all of you, to represent football,” Infantino said. “As president of FIFA my responsibility is to make decisions in the interests of the organization."
Paraguay President Santiago Peña also was affected. He delivered an opening speech that FIFA typically invites the host head of state to make hours later than scheduled, though he still praised Infantino as “a personal friend and a friend of Paraguay.”
Peña previously said in January he took credit for suggesting to Infantino that FIFA bring a major event to Paraguay, which is set to host one of the 104 games at the men's World Cup in 2030 being mostly co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
FIFA ties to Trump
Infantino opted to join President Trump on the first legs of the tour instead of meeting with his voting members. Qatar hosted the men’s World Cup in 2022, the U.S. will co-host with Canada and Mexico next year and Saudi Arabia will host in 2034.
On Wednesday in Doha, Qatar’s ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani — a fellow member of the International Olympic Committee with Infantino — hosted the visiting delegations at a state dinner at Lusail Palace.
Infantino has built close ties to both Trump administrations, and was inside the Capitol rotunda in January for the formal presidential inauguration ceremony.
Trump is set to present the trophy at the finals in MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey of both the Club World Cup in July and the World Cup next year. The Club World Cup trophy was in the Congress room Thursday. The gold trophy has spent much of the past weeks in the Oval Office at the White House.
Early exits
With the meeting running so far late, some European delegates did not return to the hall after a mid-meeting coffee break.
Empty seats reserved for the 37-member FIFA Council chaired by Infantino included those of Ceferin and the other two FIFA vice presidents from Europe: Hungarian banker Sándor Csányi and Debbie Hewitt, the head of England's soccer federation. Officials from Germany, Norway and Romania also left.
Still on stage with Infantino was the most senior Paraguayan official in world soccer, Alejandro Dominguez, the FIFA vice president and head of South American soccer body CONMEBOL.
2030 World Cup
Paraguay being included in the 2030 World Cup project has been seen as a win in FIFA politics for Dominguez. The 100th birthday World Cup will see single games in the opening week in June 2030 also played in Argentina, the 2022 champion, and Uruguay, the inaugural 1930 host.
A recent CONMEBOL proposal to expand the 2030 tournament to 64 teams — double the size of the 2022 edition in Qatar, with more games in South America — has been opposed by leaders of other soccer regions, include Ceferin in Europe, Asia and North America.
Dominguez made a speech to the Congress that hinted at thinking bigger for 2030, without directly promoting the 64-team plan.
Next congress
FIFA's congress in 2026 will be in Vancouver on April 30, six weeks before the city hosts its first game at the World Cup.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press
